Confessions of a Trailblazer

The label fangirl generally doesn’t evoke thoughts of respect by the masses. Typically, it is equated to nothing more than hysterical young women whose self-worth has been reductively minimized to an annoying mass of hysteria. Kinda like an Anti-Hero.

Sports fans have done scores of dangerous, even illegal things to prove their devotion and passion. From running onto the field during a game, bench-clearing brawls, attacking referees, to full on riots. So why is abhorrent behavior practically normalized for a fandom that’s stereotypically male, but when “fangirls,” who do little more than scream and cry at the top of their lungs for theirs, are considered crazy?

You need to Calm Down they say.

No matter how you try to explain it away, you can’t.

BUT… What you can most definitely talk about is the power those fangirls bring with them. You’ve heard the saying. There’s power in numbers. It’s true. We are mightier when we assemble. Just look at the numbers that the Swifties bring to the table. Taylor Swift isn’t the economic superpower - her fans are.

The Eras Tour has been projected to yield Taylor around $4.1 billion

THAT’S BILLIONS FOLKS- with a big ass capitol B!

Let’s compare apples to apples. The NFL made a little over 18 billion in 2023. Not shabby at all but when you think about the fact that each team has 53 players on its rosters (only 46 can play each game). Think about how many people it took to make that 18 billion … Travis Kelce included.

Taylor is one singular woman. One woman with a whole lot of fangirl power.

You may be wondering what the heck this has to do with my next blog… trust me, I’m getting there.

When you start looking at the dollar signs those “crazed” fans can produce they start looking less annoying and far more influential. Their opinions start to matter. Let’s put a bookmark here on Swiftie-nomics and come back to this. I promise it will all tie in together later.

I must admit by the time I finished researching for this story I had become a total fan girl. No, I didn’t interview Taylor.

Taylor if you’re out there, I’d love to.

Today’s blog is about a completely different kind of female powerhouse. One that deserves a bigger stage in my opinion, and hopefully yours too by the time we’re done.

If you love a good trail blazer story then you will want to read every word of this.

Katie Higgins Cook is a woman that checks off all the boxes when I think of badass. In 2015, At the age of twenty-seven, she became the first female pilot for the United States Navy Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron. Prior to this, there had not been a single female pilot in their 71 years of history.

A woman at the helm was long overdue, but how did she get there?

Most would say it was in her blood. She is a third-generation military aviator. Her grandfathers served during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and her father was an F-18 fighter pilot in the Navy. She was literally born on a naval air station in Florida.

Even though she grew up submerged in pilots and planes, she never saw any female pilots growing up and attributed aviation to be her father’s trade.

 Her Grandfather was an immigrant to the US that taught her to be thankful and give back to the country that had given so much to them. She knew she wanted to follow that narrative and in her high school years she considered many careers of service and didn’t land on aviation right off the bat “I even considered the nunnery at one point”

She knew she probably wanted kids at some point. They tend to frown on that sort of thing in convent life, so a life dressed in a habit was crossed off the list. Not to worry, she would end up in one hell of a uniform.

Ultimately, she did land on the military for her career. Her father went to the Naval Academy. Her brother went to the Naval Academy…so off she went also. She knew when she finally made the decision for the military there was no question it would be in aviation. She did go a bit rogue and sidestepped the family tradition of Navy or Army Air Corp.

Our badass became a Marine. Oorah!

After 4 years in the Naval Academy, Katie made her way to Quantico, Va for her basic schooling where she trained to be a leader. A leader to America’s sons and daughters in the military. From there she would exit as a second lieutenant. Able to be a platoon commander if necessary. Cook was one of the very few female Marine aviators to fly combat missions in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. 

I can read your mind- “She’s having the time of her life”- Not quite.

How were you feeling when it was time to deploy?

You know, I had done 4 years at the Academy. I went and did grad school. Then I did flight school, and then I went through learning my own airplane. And then finally I got to deploy. So there was this multiyear process of

 I want to deploy, I Want to deploy, I want to deploy

That's all I could think about. It's kind of the mentality that Marines said at the time: you have to deploy to be like a real marine, if that makes sense… Little did I know in 2013 the war was gonna last almost a decade after that, but I was so worried.

Katie got her deployment in 2013

I was on this platform, this, this airplane that could shoot missiles. I knew I was going to take out bad guys. I was doing exactly what I joined the Marine Corps to do, to support those, you know, marines, airmen, sailors, soldiers, allies on the ground, right? I was going to be able to do that, and I was going to be able to put, you know, warheads on 4 heads, if you will. It's exactly what I wanted to do and why I joined.

We did unfortunately have to kill a lot of bad guys.

Things that I did, actions that me and my crew did, contributed to bringing Americans home in cases where they may not have if they didn't have us overhead.

Sooooo... this is where I must share that I felt a little ashamed. Up to this point I was completely fangirling over Katie’s achievements and bravery. I was so caught up in the doors that she was opening for other women that I was blind to the heavy price tag that it held for her.

It was really, really isolating and lonely. I was the only female officer there.

I was married to someone else at the time who wasn't very good to me while I was deployed.

Obviously, when you're killing people every day, there's stressors.

There were multiple cases of sexual assault that was occurring while deployed on women who were deployed either by the people who worked on the base like 3rd country nationals or other service members. And so you're always watching your back.

You know, every time you go to the head, or whatever you don’t know what's gonna happen. Even one of my marines actually got sexually assaulted by someone who was cleaning the bathroom.

My fight or flight was constantly engaged the entire time I was there.

I had a guy who he was a civilian who was Canadian, who worked on the airfield, who was like stalking me at 1 point, and so it was heightened that I was in a war zone. I was also scared of the people who were on base with me right?

It felt like my cortisol levels were probably through the roof, And there's just nowhere that you felt 100% safe.

THAT PART!!! That’s the part that stopped me in my tracks. Imagine working and training for years to serve your country. You finally finish and you’re ready to go…

Lights, Camera, Bitch Smile!

 Here I am cheering on Katie’s badassery and clueless to the fact that she spent seven long months in fight or flight mode. Unable to even go to the bathroom alone, because someone might want to hurt her. Someone on her OWN base?!?  I instantly felt naïve in my giddiness to present this story in a flashy girl power kind of way – It’s so much more than that! It’s easy to get lost in the title(s) someone carries and overlook the cost paid to receive them.

While celebrating the significance of Katie’s achievements as a female trailblazer we also have an obligation to own that the road for her to reach it wasn’t only harder because she was a female, but also one that was far more dangerous.

For that, we have a duty to not only share Katies’ story but thank her and her female counterparts that have answered the call to serve this country. They deserve not only our support but our voice. I have always been a huge proponent for our military, but it hit different when I became a Marine mom. Sadly, I was oblivious to the fact that our female soldiers have this extra layer of stress added to their time in service. 1 in 4 US servicewomen will report experiencing sexual assault during their tenure.

Honestly, that should make us all see Red.

Question? what does this have to do with Taylor? She and Katie are both badass trailblazers just in very different arenas. If they were men, they’d both be “The Man”.

Imagine if you will, the good we could achieve if we had a fanbase like Taylor’s to rally for our unspoken female heroes. I’m not talking Vigilante Shit that requires a Getaway Car.  I’m talking about that Fearless resolve Swifite’s bring to support who and what they believe in.

Can we take that Blank Space that currently exists for supporting our female servicewomen and replace it with a fangirl base that would make Taylor herself proud? I’m not at all suggesting that we pump the brakes on our love story with Taylor. I’m simply suggesting that we share that same enthusiasm to do some good. Let's cut away the invisible string holding up the barrier to stories like Katie’s. Use the voices and resources that only a unified female fangirl base can produce and bring national awareness to the sexual harassment and abuse that our female warriors endure. Let's normalize cheering on the women that wake up every day to protect us.

Let’s take this power we have and support more of our heroines. The ones that entertain us, the ones that punch out glass ceilings, and those that defend us.

Are you ready for it?! - I am.

 Wanna know more about Katie? Take a look at this: https://www.americanveteranscenter.org/2018/11/major-katie-higgins-cook/#:~:text=Marine%20Corps%20aviator%20and%20veteran,A%20Salute%20to%20Our%20Heroes.